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FACTORS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH FUNCTIONAL EFFICIENCY

E. V. Ponomarenko

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to systematise the factors of functional efficiency of business discourse and to analyse the specificity of a complex interaction of language elements within a text, due to which discourse acquires semantic accretions. The article makes the case that nowadays the function of rhetoric impact is regarded as the leading one for business discourse, alongside other language functions. Therefore, speech functional efficiency implies enhancing the desired rhetoric effect in reflecting extralinguistic contents through linguistic means. The outlined issue is very topical, as the proper functioning of verbal tools is helpful in harmonizing business interaction, while their inappropriate use may lead to serious complications in business, politics, social and other activities. Analising samples of different registers of business discourse the author uses methods of functional linguistics, i.e. looks into the assumed communicative goal(s) and discourse functions intended by the speaker/writer, and reveals the actual semantic and pragmatic functions synergistically performed by the text elements. The article proves that the way information is perceived by the recipient is largely predetermined by such means as a certain combination of lexemes and a certain pattern of data structuring, an emphasis on favourable data and obscuration (even without distortion) of undesirable data, as well as other forms of the text pragmasemantic modification. With competent use of such means even the mere rendering of true facts forms additional sense accretions and the intended impacts on the recipient. The article also discloses the basic principles of speech impact (accessibility, associativity, expressiveness and intensiveness), gives their characteristics and exemplifies their functional significance in business discourse. Finally, the author comes to the conclusion that the strongest rhetoric effect is achieved through the common actualisation of these principles in their influence on the addressee.

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